June Frances Coleman

— Photo by Denise Cox

June Frances Coleman

June Frances Coleman draws on her life to write, as honestly as she can, about what it is like to be black in America. In doing so, she captures a humanity larger than race.

Coleman’s short story, “Across 62nd Street,” is featured in our Prose & Poetry section.

Coleman’s mother came to New York City from Alabama when she was 18 to work as an au pair; she was the seventh of 12 children in what Coleman described as “a very matriarchal family.” Coleman doesn’t know her father, although she knows his name; he was abusive to her mother, she says. She lived her first three years in Harlem and then moved to the Upper West Side.

“I didn’t much like school,” Coleman said. She did like the books her mother read to her; a favorite was Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are.” She now quotes from the book to her 7-year-old niece.

“He wanted children to be able to face their fears,” she says of Sendak. A lot of writers will say, “I want to be Dostoevsky,” she remarked. “I wanted to be Maurice Sendak...I like to play in my mind to soften reality. The world can be a hard place,” she said.

Coleman has faced a lot of her own fears to become a writer.

Her mother wrote poetry and one of Coleman’s longtime goals is to edit some of her mother’s poems to publish a book, with the proceeds going to fight uterine cancer, which killed her mother.

Coleman dropped out of school at 16 to work at a Red Apple Supermarket, to help her mother, and then followed her plan to get a GED and attend a community college, LaGuardia. It was at LaGuardia she met her first mentor, her English professor, Cecilia Macheski.

“She was a ball buster,” said Coleman. One day, when Macheski asked Coleman to stay after class, Coleman feared the worst — although she’d developed a reputation at college for being smart, she thought Macheski would see through her.

Instead, she wanted Coleman to apply for a program at Vassar. “I’m a little girl from the projects; I’m stupid,” she remembered feeling. “She pushed me.”

When she shared the news with her co-workers at a pastry shop, they were impressed: They told her Vassar was one of the Seven Sisters — “That’s a big deal,” they said.

Coleman was admitted to the five-week program and arrived on the upscale campus in the summer of 1995 on her 21st birthday. “I haven’t looked back once,” she said.

She didn’t pursue a scholarship to go on as a full-time student at Vassar, though, because the place did not feel welcoming. “I was a city kid. It was a culture shock, a place of extreme wealth. It was really hard to be there. I was treated like a scholarship student.”

Rather, she paid her way at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, earning her bachelor of fine arts degree in 2001. It seemed easier to tell stories through film, she said, and she liked the school’s practical approach. “The first day of class, I got a camera,” she said.

Coleman works as a production accountant, having discovered she had a head for numbers on her first job at the Red Apple Supermarket as a teenager. “The Dominican bookkeeper took a liking to me,” she said. Coleman’s skills have gotten her quick promotions, and she has kept the books for a variety of reality television shows and also for movies like “The Place Beyond the Pines,” which was filmed in Schenectady with some scenes at the Altamont Fair.

“It’s how I pay the bills,” Coleman said of her accounting business.

But her first love remained the written word so she went back to school to earn a master of fine arts degree from Sarah Lawrence College in 2012.

“I had to look at myself in the mirror and say, ‘You are a writer,’” said Coleman. “My education was so bad — a New York kid from the ’80s. There was not a lot of hope for us. Nancy Reagan was shaking her finger, saying, ‘Just say no.’ If I had taken their word, my future was bleak.”

Her short story, “Across 62nd Street,” is rooted in her past. “Like Kim in the story, I was always looking across the street, seeing how others lived,” she said.

Coleman describes herself as “a race writer.” She admires the work of Toni Morrison and Spike Lee.

“I want to write about my experience of being black in America in an honest, realistic way,” she said. “I want to find a place of deep truth in human suffering....You have the blackness but it’s not a caricature; it’s realistic.”

She was discouraged recently when an option on a screenplay she had written was dropped. “I felt rejected,” said Coleman. But then she started going to the Public Theater sessions held by Suzan-Lori Parks. Parks, like Coleman, is an African-American woman; she won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for her play, “Topdog/Underdog.”

Parks puts on “Watch Me Work” performance pieces where the audience members are encouraged to bring their own work. “It’s like a master class,” said Coleman. Parks writes on her electric typewriter as Coleman writes on her laptop.

“You have to ask about your own work, not hers,” said Coleman. So she told Parks about her recent rejection, and how she felt her work had no purpose, how she continually starts things she doesn’t finish. “I need to sell something,” Coleman told Parks.

We do it for us, not for them, Parks responded, although Coleman said her answer was far more eloquent than that.

After her first “Watch Me Work” session, Coleman decided she really wanted to work on her novel, about growing up in the midst of the crack epidemic in the ’80s and ’90s — the plot centers on a hitman who falls in love with the daughter of the man he has been hired to kill.

With Parks’s guidance, Coleman has set an April 1 deadline to finish a first draft of the novel. She sets aside two hours to write every night, starting at about 11 p.m. She sometimes writes in longhand, with a No. 2 mechanical pencil because it’s faster for her than typing.

“I’m no longer in the honeymoon stage,” she said, of an era when she thought about the perfect writing instrument. “The important thing is to show up for yourself, to get the work done,” Coleman said.

The working title for her novel is “Beautiful Boys Hang From Sycamores.”

Calling the book “a labor of love,” Coleman said, “It’s a time that shaped me, a difficult time. My friends died or went to prison. It’s an ode to them.”

— Melissa Hale-Spencer


 

Across 62nd Street

By June Frances Coleman

And when I get out of here, I’m going to live in The Alfred. That’s what I want to tell him. Instead, I just look through my tears at his name tag that reads GENERAL MANAGER and underneath JAVIER SOSA.

He’s a tall, thick, olive-colored Puerto Rican that smells sweet and spicy at the same time. Puerto Rican men like to scent themselves like women; I wonder why. Javier Sosa is definitely different from my father, I think. My father never smells good. When he does come around, I don’t even think that I can smell him, so I’m not sure if he smells good or bad. He’s always dirty so most likely, he probably smells bad.

The grocery cart my mommy gave me to bring the food back home hangs by the two S-hooks on the store’s shopping cart that I’m nervously gripping. A gallon of milk, one dozen large eggs, and a variety pack of flavored Quaker Oatmeal lie in the large basket. I pick up the eggs and move them to the child’s seat of the cart like my mommy always does.

As my mommy puts it, the A&P on Fifty-Fifth Street and Ninth Avenue has always been unwelcoming. We, the people of the projects, are an eyesore, she says. It’s best to get in and out as fast as you can, she instructed before I left the house.

A loaf of discount bread, two half-gallons of Minute Maid Fruit Punch on special, family pack of whole chicken legs, a pound of Bologna, half-pound of American cheese, five-pound bag of rice.

Javier Sosa is looking at me. Salt-water streaks have stained what my mommy calls my tawny cheeks by now. We’re out of lotion and it being a brisk New York November morning, I know my face is really ashy.

Javier Sosa makes another announcement, “If anyone found a beige purse with a My Little Pony button on it, please return it to the manager’s office.”

I begin to shake and through thick saliva I make out “She’s going to be so mad.”

My scarf is getting really damp from all my crying and my head starts to hurt.

“How old are you?” asks Javier Sosa.

“Nine.”

Javier Sosa smiles at me when I say how old I am. I look into his brown almond-shaped eyes.

“My daughter’s nine. What’s your name?”

“Kimberly Grimes.”

I say it loud enough for only Javier Sosa to hear. It’s only fair that I tell him my full name since I know his. I’m not crying anymore. When he talks to me, all that is wrong with this day goes away.

His teeth are pretty, but stained from the Newports that I can smell on him mixed with the sweet and spicy. All the Puerto-Rican men on my block smoke them. My eyes always sting from the thick smoke when I pass them. When I get a few steps away, the scent of burning mint settles in my nose and it makes me cough.

Where does she go to school and what is her name I want to ask him, but I don’t dare. He probably lives with her, too. Some fathers live with their daughters. And they smile at their daughters a lot. They also wear really nice cologne and live in places like The Alfred.

Javier Sosa probably lives in a place like The Alfred with his pretty wife and nine-year-old daughter. I bet he has a son, too, a son that is exactly three years, two months and seven days older than his daughter. I should ask him her name. Javier Sosa disappears into his office.

Krasdale frozen lima beans, Krasdale frozen peas and carrots, a five-pound bag of Domino sugar, ten packs of Grape, Black Cherry, Pink Lemonade and my favorite Tropical Punch Kool-Aid.

Mommy says I am old enough to shop alone now. I don’t think so because, if I were old enough, I wouldn’t be standing here in this mess. Javier Sosa reappears from his office. He is holding a microphone shaped like a yo-yo with a black, squiggly cord that is connected to the PA system in his big tan fingers.

“If you found a child’s purse that’s beige with a button on it, return it to the manager’s office at once,” says Javier Sosa over the loudspeaker.

He’s starting to sound angry.

“It’s a My Little Pony button” I let out, trying to hold back the wail that’s dying to burst out of me.

“I know, mamita,” says Javier Sosa.

He produces a Kleenex from the pocket of his gray trousers and he carefully wipes my face. His touch is not rough like I expected, but my head moves back a little from his strength.

“Take this,” he says, handing me the damp Kleenex.

I reach for the tissue and hold it with both hands. Javier Sosa is looking at me again. Not sure of what to say, I stay silent.

“Kimberly,” says Javier Sosa, “they call you Kim?”

I shake my head yes because I don’t want more tears to fall if I say it, but they start to fall anyway.

“Wait here, okay. I’ll be right back.”

He puts both his hands on my shoulders. I get a good whiff of him. Javier Sosa then quickly walks away and disappears into the store.

The A&P is full of people, but not busy and crowded like when I come with my mommy. I’m standing in front of Javier Sosa’s office and I don’t recognize anyone from my block. It’s probably best that I don’t recognize anyone and they don’t recognize me.

Franks and a pack of hot dog buns. If I don’t have enough, I’ll put them back.

I guess what my mommy says about the other mommies in the neighborhood is true. They spend all their food stamps on junk food when they get their checks and, by the last week of the month, they come knocking on our door to borrow eggs, butter, sugar, and even bread. Mommy always gives it to them, too.

She says she’ll never deny a child a meal. They always send their kids. The kids can never look at me when I answer the door. And at the check-cashing place -- Mommy says their mommies always forget what they borrowed. But my mommy always has enough.

****

When I go with her to the check-cashing place, if check day lands on a Saturday, she always gives me a dollar for candy after school. She counts her money and food stamps quickly, but, when we get home, she sits down at the table and takes her time.

The three-bedroom apartments on the D line in the public-housing complex that we live in are all the same. When you walk in our apartment on the seventh floor, you immediately enter a dark living room. The lamp mysteriously got broken last year.

There’s a 13-inch television to the right. My aunt Cheryl donated it when she lived with us. It’s old and always on, but me, my sister, and two brothers like to gather around it and watch the Smurfs and other cartoons while we eat our cereal on Saturday mornings.

There’s a sofa against the wall that faces the television, but it’s old, too, so we prefer the floor. Plus, I once cut my stomach lying on the sofa. There was an exposed broken spring in one of the cushions. It left a bad scar that I like to play with when I’m nervous. Mommy puts newspaper down on the floor for underneath our bowls so we don’t make a mess.

Straight off the living room is the small eat-in kitchen. A dining table that seats four is propped against the wall with a lighting fixture that holds a 100-watt bulb that’s always on and lights both the living room and kitchen. When we get home from the check-cashing place, Mommy lays her purse on the table, pulls the cash and food stamps from it, and counts and sorts.

I like to sit beside her and watch. She doesn’t count aloud, but silently moves her lips. I spend my time between watching her lips and watching the piles she makes with the money and food stamps.

“Seventy-seven,” Mommy says aloud when she is done counting the first pile.

She always turns to me afterwards and says, “Seventy-six fifty for the rent and fifty cents for the money order.”

Once all the cash is counted and sorted, Mommy makes fifty-dollar stacks of food stamps for each week until next check day, which is a month away.

*****

A woman wheels her grocery cart past me towards one of the many checkout lanes where there are very few customers. A boy toddler sits in the child’s seat, gnawing on a cookie. They make their way to an open cashier near where I stand.

She’s probably got a day’s worth of groceries in her cart and they probably live in The Alfred too.  She’s a pretty, brown-haired, and full-bodied woman like my mommy. The only differences between her and my mommy are that she is White and my mommy is Black. She found a man that moved her and her baby boy to the Alfred and my mommy found a man that left her and her babies in the projects. She, him, and baby boy most likely live on one of the higher floors in their fancy high-rise building.

“Apartment twenty-six H,” I can overhear her tell the cashier.

Mrs. I-live-in-The-Alfred is having a single bag of groceries delivered to her. But, I have to wheel our groceries seven blocks and one avenue home and that’s only if Javier Sosa can catch the thief that stole my purse with the last 40 of the 50 dollars in food stamps that my mommy alone has for the week. My scarf is soaked. There is no place to sit down and my head is really starting to hurt.

Corn pops! Oh what’s the use of remembering what I need to get? My purse is gone and I’m standing here hysterical, looking stupid all alone. Javier Sosa has probably slipped out of the store.

If I can pull myself together enough, I’m going to do the same thing. She’s going to be angry, but I’ll tell her I tried to find it and even went to the manager, Mr. Javier Sosa. She’s probably going to have to go to the Catholic Church on Fifty-Ninth Street for food. She hates that. I know my mommy. We’ll be eating a never-ending can of beef stew for a week. My big brother hates that stuff. He’ll be angry, too.

My mommy is going to start treating me like a little girl again because it’s really irresponsible to leave important stuff like grocery money unattended. I’ve really screwed up this time. Just wait here like he said, he’ll be back, thief in hand. I want to play with my scar, but I would have to undo my heavy purple bomber and sweater underneath to do that.

“Sweetie, are you lost?”

I hear the calm voice of a young woman. When I look up at her standing there in front of me, she looks like the woman that plays Wonder Woman on television. Her eyes are a sky-blue, like my favorite crayon. I think Crayola calls it cerulean. And her long, dark hair frames her pretty milky-colored face.

“Are you lost, honey,” she repeats.

Shaking my head I manage to get out, “No, somebody took my purse and Javier Sosa is trying to find them.”

“Okay.”

Opening her leather purse, she pulls out a Kleenex, bends and begins to gently blot my sopping wet face.

“It’s okay. What’s your name?”

“Kim.”

“Well Kim, I’m going to wait with you till Javier Sosa comes back with your purse. Is that all right?”

“Yes,” I say shaking my aching head.

I want to ask her name, but I don’t dare. We stand there silently and she dries each new tear that falls. 

After a while, she asks, “Where’s your mommy, Kim?”

“Home.”

“Where’s home, Kim?”

I want to tell her The Alfred, but she’ll never believe me.

“Sixty-Second and Amsterdam,” I confess.

 Her pretty eyes go bright, “I live on Sixty-Second too.”

“The Alfred?”

She shakes her head no, “I’m on Columbus, been working on my law degree at Fordham.”

She doesn’t ask me if I live in The Alfred, but I guess that’s pretty obvious.

“Fordham’s right next to The Alfred.”

“That’s right, Kim.”

I can see both buildings from my and my sister’s bedroom window. My big brother says that Fordham is a college. He also says that I might get to go to college when I get big because I do really well in school.

Before she can ask, “I’m nine,” I confess, adding, “I’m old enough to go grocery shopping.”

“Is that right? You sure are, dear Kim.”

 She doesn’t remind me that I’m also young enough to get my purse stolen and I like that.

It’s getting late because when I look out into the store I can see fewer customers. What my mommy calls the afternoon rush seems to be over. The only customers left are the ones that stop in for the occasional gallon of milk or a dozen of eggs or a loaf of bread.

Aisle four to my left is where I was when I noticed my purse was missing. I wonder if Javier Sosa looked there already. Someone decided that the oatmeal should be on the very top shelf, which I had to climb in order to get a box of the variety pack. It seems I only looked away for a second, but as I wheeled my cart toward the Pop-Tarts, it was gone. It’s my first real purse. Aunt Cheryl gave it to me in the summer. And my favorite button. I probably shouldn’t have taken it off my jacket. It’s gone.

Javier Sosa turns into the Breakfast Foods aisle that I’m looking down. He walks toward me beaming like a light, with no purse and no thief, but I can’t help but to smile back at him.

Turning to the woman standing next to me that looks like Wonder Woman, I say, “There’s Javier Sosa,” with relief.

“Any luck?” she asks him as he approaches us.

He gives her an angry look that’s without a doubt meant for the purse-taker and not her, I’m sure.

“Hang in there with me, Kim.”

Patting my shoulders, he passes us and once again enters his office. The woman and I look at one another.

“I’m sorry, Kim,” she sighs. “Wait for Mr. Sosa, okay. I’m going to go now, but don’t let this dampen your day, okay.”

“Okay.”

She loosens my scarf, and then goes into to her purse to hand me a fresh Kleenex. She hangs around a few seconds.

“Kim, you’re a real good girl to help your mommy with the chores.”

She presses her hand to my tear-soaked cheek.

“Bye,” is all that I can let out because saying anymore would mean a full on sobbing fit.

As she walks away, I feel like following her, but I can’t move. It’s like I’m frozen in this one spot. Looking into the basket, I think to at least put all the items back once my feet start to work again.

“Whoever found a beige purse with a My Little Pony button on it, which belongs to a child, needs to return it to the manager’s office now,” announces Javier Sosa bitterly.

I hear the clang of the microphone being shoved back into its place. The door to the manager’s office squeals open and out comes Javier Sosa. I look at him with water-filled eyes, but he is grinning.

“Have you finished your shopping?”

“No sir.”

I don’t know what to think anymore. Then, the sweet and spicy smelling man reaches into his pocket and pulls out two folded twenty-dollar bills.

“Here, Kim,” he says handing them to me with a flash of his pretty, cigarette stained teeth.

I reach for the money. Andrew Jackson’s blank, pale face looks up at me when I look down at the bills. So I turn back to Javier Sosa.

“Do you want me to help you with the rest of your shopping?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll take the cart,” he says playfully bumping me with his hip.

“Okay.”

I really want to give him a hug.

“Where are we going to first?”

“Corn Pops,” I exclaim, patting my face with the Kleenex the Wonder Woman look-a-like gave me.

“Okay, follow me.”

He takes off back in the direction of the breakfast aisle and we turn into aisle four, heading toward the cereal. I look at Javier Sosa, while trying to keep up with his pace. When he realizes that I’ve fallen behind him a little, he stops to wait for me. When I catch up to him, he slows down so that we can walk together.

“Javier?”

“Yes, Kim?”

“What’s your daughter’s name?”

“Her name is Theresa.”

My mommy says that it’s good luck to walk down Tenth Avenue to get to the A&P. She’s always finding things when she walks that way. One time she found a shopping bag full of school supplies at the bus stop on Fifty-Seventh Street two days before school started. And I was with her when she found a thousand dollars rolled up in a paper bag near the schoolyard we always pass to get to the A&P. She picked up the bag to throw away my gum and we got to eat ice cream instead of fruit cocktail for dessert for a whole month.

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